Chapter 35 cont. HE SURELY WAS Rev. Michael Hummer was pastor of a congregation at Iowa City after leaving Davenport and thence went to Keokuk. The incident of his bell immortalized in poetry by Judge Tuthill appears elsewhere. The first verse of the poem is said to have been an improvisation of John P. Cook. Mr Hummer lived in Lawrence, Kansas, during Quantrell's raid and escaped with his life by headlong flight. He returned from hiding after the guerillas had gone and helped look after the wounded and bury the dead. He was a resident of Kansas City in 1870. Among other early private schools was that of Miss Eads, who advertised in the Sun as being late of St. Louis and opening a school for misses and children, also Miss Beard, in the school room formerly occupied by William Gahan, who conducted a school known as the "Davenport School." John C. Holbrook was an early teacher. A Mr. Ryder taught a school in the '40s on Brady street between Second and Third streets. Another of these old schools was kept by a Mr. Sheldon on Front and Main streets. Mr. Weir had a school on Main street, west side, north of Fourth. The Misses Lyon and Munn conducted a school for young ladies at Perry and Fifth streets. Mrs. Stephens' select school was on Main above Eighth street, Mrs. Crockett's in Young's block on Brady street. Herman Hamburger, "bright young man, well versed in the manners of polite society," taught a school for the "education of young gentlemen" on Brady and Fourth streets. A notable teacher of early days was th Hon. C. C. Washburne, a native of Livermore, Maine, who came to Davenport in June, 1839, when but twenty-one years old, having come west by Erie canal and the lakes and crossed Illinois on a wagon. In this little hamlet of 300 people this young man from the East organized what is said to have been the second school in Davenport. It was conducted in the second story of Dillon and Forrest's boarding house, just west of Scott, and between Second street and the river. Among his pupils were J. Monroe Parker, C. H. Eldridge, Ira Cook, and probably Judge Dillon. There were but twelve or fifteen children in the village at this time. The subsequent career of this pioneer school teacher belongs to national history. He moved to LaCrosse in the '40s, was elected governor of that state, and held the position four years. In 1854 he went to congress, served until the war broke out, became colonel of the Second Wisconsin cavalry, and was promoted until he became a major general in command of the department of Memphis. In 1865 he again went to congress and served until 1869, when he again became governor for two years. In 1873 he retired from public service and built the largest flouring mills in the world at Minneapolis. He also found time to inaugurate the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroad enterprise, erect an observatory in connection with the university at Madison, provide it with the largest telescope in the world, and present it to the state. He died May 14, 1882. Debbie Clough Gerischer Iowa Gen Web, Assistant CC, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ IAGENWEB: Special History Project: http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm Gerischer Family Web Site: http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/